27 June 2008

ANNOUNCEMENT: Brad Wilber's Met Futures Page has relocated to its own website. Please redirect your links to the new page for new updates. Sieglinde is happy to have been a part of this important endeavor. Thanks for visiting Sieglinde's Diaries!

LAST UPDATED: 29 September 2010

Brad Wilber has asked Sieglinde to provide a home for his famous file of information on Metropolitan Opera feature seasons. As always, this list is compiled as reliably as possible, but should not to be taken as fact, nor is it affilated with the Met in any way. As always, if you have corrections, deletions, or additions, please contact Brad directly: Bradley.Wilber(at)houghton.edu.

25 June 2008

24 June 2008

Where has Sieglinde been, you ask? I could say, campaigning for Diva Hillary in the gay baths of Appalachia; or travelling the world's opera houses on first class; or learning how to excise my acute fear of swim tests; or starting some sort of free porn download blog elsewhere. But really I was immersed mostly in the thrilling banality of work, in the discovery of small things, in seeing my name on academic publications. So I had to work my ass off, is all. There may have been crises of identity for Sieglinde, but I'm forgetting the details now. So yeah, I wasn't doing much else the past few months-- boycotting MSNBC mostly, also leaving dozens of balcony box tickets unused. Of the ones I used, the most memorable are the three incandescent Tristan und Isoldes, each with a unique set of lovers. (I was there when the Tristan got nearly decapitated by Dieter Dorn's magic carpet!) A healthy Deborah Voigt is a formidable Wagnerian soprano, the voice now with indisputably less beauty but with a more "live" quality and secure power. She should be able to do the Brunnhildes in the coming new Met Ring production, and do in historic dimensions, I have little doubt. What else? A Peter Grimes that mostly solidified Patricia Racette's place in my pantheon of fearsome sopranos, an Ernani that put me to sleep, a Fille du Regiment (with bis!) that confirmed what I've thought of Natalie Dessay and Donizetti's opera all along. Before I forget, I'd like to supplement the terribly mean things I said about Johan Botha's Otello below, which unfortunately have been first to greet every visitor these many weeks. I saw a couple more of the later Otellos, and by golly wow: once comfortable, this man sang true with beauty and anger at once, a rare summation. This early, he is already a great Otello. Renee Fleming, your Desdemona brought me to near-tears every single time. More later.